YouTube users sometimes experience blacking out of screen or variations of it. Sometime you may face YouTube Black Screen for the entire duration of the video or some part of it, either way, it is a very prominent issue amongst people.
YouTube Black Screen error can be caused due to a number of reasons, including the incorrect configuration of your browser, extensions, ad blockers, or even hardware accelerations. The probability of finding bugs in your system or the website even is inevitable. Given below are the easy fixes to this very frustrating problem.
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How to Solve YouTube Black Screen on Chrome, Firefox and IE
Solution 1: Check your Connection
It is always recommended to use a smooth internet connection while streaming videos on any online streaming site. Before we start over other methods, it is pertinent that you must have a reliable and relatively fast network connection. Poor networks often lead to users seeing a black screen or only hear audio as it prevents your browser from loading the complete video.
After making sure that you have a good Internet connection, refresh the webpage to check if the error still exists. Proxies are one of the major reasons for hindering the data transfer of your computer.
Also, if your computer is a part of a connected network of computers, it is plausible that other computers are using up your network’s resources. Also, check if all the running applications are not using up all of the traffic.
Solution 2: Stream Videos in Incognito Mode
It was noticed that the problems faced by the users were corrected when they logged out of their respective YouTube accounts. You can also choose to use the Incognito window and try streaming videos there.
It is found that this is the most viable solution used without encountering any complications. To open a new Incognito Window in Chrome, right-click on the Chrome icon and select “New Incognito Window” or use the shortcut Ctrl + Shift + N if Chrome is already opened.
Solution 3: Clear Browsing Data
YouTube videos blacking out can also be due to the existing caches present in your browser, which either interfere or get accumulated up to a point where your browser cannot deal with them and gets stuck.
We have come up with a step by step instructions to delete your browsing data from Chrome, and other browsers can follow the same with a different approach of execution.
This process will delete all your personalized settings, starting from cookies to your saved passwords. Make sure you have backed up the important data.
Step 1 – Press Ctrl + Shift + Del or go to “Clear browsing data” from settings.
Step 2 – Click on the “Advanced” tab present on its top and check all the checkboxes and select “Clear browsing data”.
Step 3 – Restart your browser and check if the YouTube Black Screen still persists.
Solution 4: Disable AdBlocker and Extension
If getting rid of caches and data from your browser didn’t solve your problem, the core issue may be the extensions of your browser. It is imminent that you disable all the extensions before moving on to the next step as it helps in realizing that the problem is the browser or the server.
Step 1 – To disable the extensions of your browser, type “chrome://extensions” or open the extensions option from the settings of your browser.
Step 2 – Now, uncheck the “enable” option to disable the extensions making prominent changes to your browser and interface.
Step 3 – It is recommended to disable all the Adblocker which are known to frequently cause problems while streaming as it tries to remove ads from the video and in response, the streaming video doesn’t play.
Restart your browser after disabling all the extensions to check if the solution worked!
Solution 5: Disabling Hardware Acceleration
Hardware acceleration is the fancy term used when some of the tasks are assigned to the GPU instead of the CPU. This is almost always used to improve the performance of tasks like streaming videos.
However, it may cause some unexpected errors, and we can try disabling hardware acceleration to solve the blacking out of the screen problem.
Step 1 – Open Chrome Settings by clicking on the menu icon on the top right corner.
Step 2 – Click on the Settings button from the drop-down menu.
Step 3 – Navigate towards the end and open the “Advanced” type.
Step 4 – Find the “Setting” option amongst the list and uncheck the “Use hardware acceleration when available” option.
Step 5 – Once unchecked, a new “Relaunch” button will appear.
Step 6 – Click on it to reset the browser and launch after the changes are complete.
Check whether the solution worked or not and you can always revert back to the old settings using the same procedure whenever required. If this still doesn’t work, here is another process:
Step 1 – Type chrome://flags/ and press Enter.
Step 2 – Scroll until you find “Hardware-accelerated video decode” and disable that option.
Step 3 – A pop up will show asking to relaunch the browser. Click on it and check whether it worked or not.
One can always revert back to the original settings by following the same instructions.
Solution 6: Using Software Rendering (for IE and Edge users)
While Chrome uses hardware acceleration to run smoothly, Microsoft edge prefers software rendering to make the process run efficiently. If you have trouble streaming videos using IE or Edge, we can try changing these settings through internet options. Follow these steps to solve the issue for both the browsers:
Step 1 – Use the shortcut Windows + S to use the search bar of the start menu. Type “internet options” in the dialogue box and open the same.
Step 2 – Once opened, scroll to the Advanced tab. Select “Use software rendering instead of GPU rendering”.
Step 3 – Restart your PC and relaunch the browser to implement the changes.
Solution 7: Updating your Browser
If the browser isn’t completely updated, the browser may be having YouTube black screen issue. Make sure to update your browser to its latest build along with its Adobe Flash Player plug-in. YouTube does not support this anymore.
If you are using Chrome, follow the below steps to the core. If not, you can try uninstalling the browser from Programs and features and then download its latest version from its website. Also, try and stream videos on different browsers to get to know correctly whether the problem is in the specific browser or all the browsers on your computer.
Step 1 – Click on the 3 dots present on the top right corner of Chrome.
Step 2 – Select “Help” from the drop-down menu.
Step 3 – Choose “About Google Chrome“.
Step 4 – Chrome will automatically start searching for updates. If there is an update available, download the same.
Step 5 – A pop up will launch. It will prompt you to relaunch the browser. Make sure to save all and press the relaunch button.
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Solution 8: Check Adobe Flash Player/JavaScript
Adobe Flash Player is a plugin. It is preinstalled in many web browsers. Also, we use it to embed videos on several websites. It may sometimes cause this error, so it is best to uninstall the current version and reinstall the latest version from the official website.
YouTube has given up using Adobe Flash player and has chosen an HTML5 player as its default. You can check from the official YouTube website directly. However, they have a contingency in place for different browsers that force Flash on YouTube for browsers who don’t have HTML5 working correctly.
For example, Firefox users have an add on which automatically uses Flash to stream videos online. We recommend you to troubleshoot this issue and confirm whether the browser supports HTML5 or not. There should be little to none conflicts with the adobe, which evidently causes a lot of problems.
